Omaha Beach: Then and Now

You asked your father, who was there, why (or how) they did it. Why does anyone do anything? A direct answer is often inadequate or camouflage. That’s why he (likely) didn’t say. Why do bloggers blog; singers sing; talkers talk; etc. Tomes can be written about just this and all would come to the same conclusion: They did it because it was there to be done.

We only ask when an action is so alien to our own experience, it leaves us breathless. We never realize that any action is in part directed by circumstance; that we do the same every time we pick up a spoon to eat. Every action resulting in a certifiable event is the result of no less than 100% commitment of which at least 50% is owned. The balance can be attributed to outside coercion, or even to the absence thereof – as in “allowing” something to happen. The exact motivation behind it might be diffuse, branching off into areas of the dimmest understanding and, just as often, beyond words – but nonetheless real. Bumper sticker slogans - like, “(we did it) For God and Country” - don’t even begin to tell the story. That’s why those who fought seldom talk about it.

They tend to identify with those who didn’t make it back. They continue to wonder why the bullets that killed their friends spared them. They were all in it together, after all. The bullets that determined the dead found the survivors as well. Even escaping unscathed, a part of you invariably died, as did the distinction between living and having passed on.

That’s why old soldiers don’t talk about it much as they look at the world through the eyes of their fallen comrades who the world’s living summarily classify as “heroes” without the slightest understanding of what they are talking about.